The Brain Game
John Kennedy
I had only been working with CFL quarterback Trevor Harris for a few months when he came to me with a question. My company, Combat Brain Training, uses the concept of neural plasticity to help athletes, soldiers and others use their brain more effectively. Trevor was disciplined with the exercises and saw results quickly; he was seeing more of the field and making the right decisions more often and more quickly. But his team, at the time the Ottawa Redblacks, was leading the league in sacks allowed. Despite his improved passing efficiency, Trevor was getting flattened on a far-too-regular basis.
So I agreed to do a free Zoom session with Trevor’s offensive linemen, and Trevor wasn’t sacked at all for the next two games. Soon the Redblacks coach reached out to schedule a time for me to come north to work with the whole team.
Trevor’s dedication to the idea of training his brain into top condition in the same way he trains his body has made him one of the top quarterbacks in the CFL and a model of the effectiveness of Combat Brain Training. I work with plenty of athletes, from an eighth-grade soccer player to an Olympic skier to a professional quarterback. Those who commit to the program come to understand that they can sharpen their brain’s function in ways that will improve every aspect of their performance.
I started brain training in 2007, when I was invited to work with a group of Marines to help them improve their intuition with the goal of avoiding injuries from IEDs. I was originally a business consultant, but I had started studying the vast capacity for fine-tuning the brain and suddenly I found that God was calling to move me from saving businesses to saving lives.
On that initial Marines assignment, I helped the worst performing platoon in the battalion become the best, and when I moved from government contracts to the private sector I began to explore the potential benefits of brain training even further. Today I work primarily with people in two categories: Top athletes like Trevor, who are already performing at a high level and want to gain an edge, and the individuals who have undergone trauma like a concussion and seek a way to return their brain to its normal capacity.
Data is constantly coming into our brains, and combat brain training focuses on fine-tuning our ability to filter out what's not relevant and focus on what’s most important, often in just an instant. How effectively we think through what we're going to do with the information we perceive and act on it determines our performance in any situation.
I enjoy watching the improvement from all of my clients, but the results from elite athletes are often particularly striking. After the skier had been performing the simple brain exercises I taught her for a few months, she reported back that she could now ski faster without falling because she could see the snow conditions farther out. Even though her eyes are the same and the snow is the same, she has found that she's processing out ahead of her more quickly and effectively.
When I started working with the Chicago Soul, a former professional indoor soccer team, they were struggling to work together and were near the bottom of their league standings. Soon after the sessions I led with the players, the Soul beat the only undefeated team in the league two consecutive times. The goalie told me that he became so adept at predicting where the ball would go next that his friends started joking with him about picking stocks for them.
Training athletes was a natural transition from my work with the military because intense competition on a field or court has similar qualities to battle. No one is shooting at athletes, but they have to make quick decisions with excellent focus to succeed. They are also accustomed to a high level of discipline from years of physical training, and the most successful clients I have—the ones like Trevor—are the ones that commit themselves wholly to the brain training exercise program. Trevor didn’t expect immediate results, but he knew that just like hours in the weight room have changed his body, a few minutes a day of mental exercises could change his brain.